Any of you guys owning a nimbus out there able to take a photo of the helm steering setup down below, and of the mechanisms that hold the engine hatch on? My helm had been removed but the sheaves, quadrant, and such are still there, but they look unoriginal. My engine hatch was glued down and missing what I assume was hatch locks. Any help would be very appreciated.

Any of you guys owning a nimbus out there able to take a photo of the helm steering setup down below, and of the mechanisms that hold the engine hatch on? My helm had been removed but the sheaves, quadrant, and such are still there, but they look unoriginal. My engine hatch was glued down and missing what I assume was hatch locks. Any help would be very appreciated.

Sorry, I don't have pictures, but I can describe the setup of both.
The steering pedestal setup was from Yacht Specialties (no longer available), not Edson and had a sheave box bolted onto the bottom of the cockpit sole. I think it may have been some non-standard sheave box and/or farther forward than it should have been, can't recall for sure. Quadrant travel was limited by some big fiberglass bosses tabbed into the hull on each side of the quadrant.
And the rudder... If you want to lay awake at night and worry, ask me about the inside of my rudder...
I changed up my steering years ago when I installed autopilot. I think I reused the original sheave box and relocated it a few inches aft or maybe turned it around to take advantage of the built in stop, or I may have got a different one. Anyway, it now has a pin extending down from the sheave box casting down into the quadrant to limit its travel and I removed the fiberglass stops from the hull.

It also had criss-crossing cockpit drains fiberglassed up under the deck that were just stupid and caused standing water in the cockpit when healed. Now that mess is all removed and I just ran the cockpit drains through a Tee and down to their respective through-hulls.

The engine cover is also a really bad design. It's got a very shallow lip as you can probably still see, and doesn't channel water forward to the drain. On my boat, the aft end of that channel (opposite the drain) sits lower than the forward end (where the drains are) even when the bow tank is empty. And it can't drain to the rear because the area where the pedestal sits in about 1-1/2" higher than the lip. So the water and any sediments accumulate in that aft end of the drainage channel.
The hatch had neoprene foam as a seal, but it was not effective. Rainwater would always make it through the seal onto the motor because there is really no way to clamp it down; it just uses a bronze hatch lift fore and aft (like ABI #AA51027B TURNING LOCK HATCH LIFT HANDLES ). And it would take a huge force to effectively clamp a sealing area that large anyway.
I think gluing it shut is the only way to solve the leaking without major fabrication.
Building the lip up a bit higher with a knife-edge could form an effective seal without requiring monstrous clamping forces. I figured I'd screw/5200 a square hoop of 1/8" AL or stainless inside the aperture and bring the lip up another 1-1/2" or so to form a much deeper channel and bring the hatch cover up to the same level as the adjacent fiberglass under the pedestal (do away with the teak sole insert). Then ideally build a new hatch cover too.
I've still got my hatch, but there's apiece of plywood and caulk under the teak cockpit floor right now.

I've got several working drawings of the Nimbus I got from Mike Kaufmann about 15 yr ago. If anybody is interested I could look into duplicating them, but they're blueprints and may not reproduce that well.
I called him to ask what the rudder bearings and structure were supposed to look like, then faxed him my own drawings of how the boat was actually constructed. They differed substantially in some cases...
He was very nice, and sent me blueprints.

A description is the next best thing =) I thought I saw some sheaves mounted under the cockpit floor in the diagrams I've seen online. I have no such thing, instead there are large stainless stands port and starboard. I am not in love with this setup, mostly because it seems to not be perfectly aligned.

How many degrees do you think you get of travel? I feel as though mine was setup to allow for the Autopilot but not well done. I have bought a new helm and I am planning to install it, and move the autopilot to it's own tiller arm off of the quadrant. The current autopilot and stops seem to limit my travel to 20-22 degrees each side of center. Makes the boat a bear to turn around in tight quarters. How is yours in terms of turning radius?

On the engine cover front, I'm at war with it. Here in the freezing zone, the ice heaves it up and I have to keep a real eye on it or else I take on too much water. Just installed a garboard drain as an insurance policy against the worst case water ingress. I am going to design a stainless cross beam hold down system for it that tightens from below and replace the aged seal around the border. If it goes well I will share the results gladly.

If you could digitize those drawings you have, I would be very excited and eternally grateful. So they show measurements for the rudder and such?

What work did you do/need on the rudder? Mine may need a lower bearing and I was wondering if you have done one or did you need the drawings for something else?

I may not be remembering the original steering sheave arrangement properly. Now you mention it, left and right sheaves on brackets sounds familiar. And I remember the cables coming in at an angle I did't like; sheaves too far forward maybe. It was a loooong time ago.
I think maybe I picked up a used yacht specialties or edson sheave box. As I recall, I've got more rudder articulation than with the original fiberglass bump-stops out beside the quad. Picture a ~1-1/4" dia pin hanging down inside quadrant to limit travel. It's about as much articulation as possible without interference problems on the rudder skeg and I'm real happy with the turning radius.
For the A/P, I looked at adding its own tiller, but maybe had trouble finding the right one, and maybe there's not enough keyway on the shaft for both? Anyway, couldn't come up with a good tiller solution, so I bolted an AL plate to the top of the quad and that freed me up to set my own A/P tiller length, so that rudder articulation is limited by steering stop (big pin), not the A/P. I'll be down by the boat tomorrow and maybe can take some pictures of it.

On the rudder, I had problems with the gland leaking, so in the course of messing with that (gotta remove quad and key first) I discovered that it has a really small bronze bearing inside. And my top bearing was a complete joke, only secured to the fiberglass with 4x #10 bronze screws. Yeah, it moved around a LOT underway. So I made some big delrin bearings; one just a 4" long sleeve and one with a big flange. Put the sleeve in the gland and repacked, and fiberglassed the flanged one in where the little top bearing used to be. And reinforced that upper well that the bearing sits in.
Inside the rudder was a much worse story. It was all full of water, so I took it apart and found that the beefy 3" stainless stock extends down into the rudder only about 6 inches!!!!!!
The design specifies 24" as I recall, but in mine, the rudder armature was just butted and welded up against the bottom of the stainless stock. It's probably a good thing that the upper bearing was wallowing around and letting the skeg take most of the load, or else the rudder probably would have fatigued itself in two and fallen off the boat. I've got some old pictures of that somewhere. I don't know if they were all like that, but mine was not build to spec (hull #16) and it was a shock to M Kaufmann.
Sure, I'll see what I can do about the drawings. Probably take a couple weeks to get around to it though.

Hi wamcniel,
I walk past your boat every week, and would be interested in taking a look inside next time your down here, if it can be arranged. I just dont have enough posts to get contact info to you.

hmmm... I wonder if mine are "stock" then. They just look kinda out of place. The sheaves are too far forward, so maybe it's the same deal.

I have a full circle quadrant that would not require sheaves. I am thinking about changing over to it since fewer pulleys should be easier on the cables. But it's an aluminum part and it find it hard to trust it as much as I would the cast bronze one that is currently there. The keyway was probably the issue since from what i have seen on mine, it stands only 1/2" proud of the quadrant. Any pics would be great though I am sure it's not easy task getting in there.

I'm glad you mentioned the rudder issues since I will be in there this summer dealing with the other steering parts, now I will have some things to look out for.

I'm fitting out to do some major travel and i'm addressing everything I can think of now, because it will be much harder later. On the docket are some titanium chainplates, which I should be able to make on the cheap with some ebay TI and a local machinist. I will share the measurements with you if you need/want them when I am done.

OK, got a bunch of steering pictures uploading. Yours must be different, because there's no way mine has room for a full-round quad. There's a longitudinal 'bulkhead' for lack of a better word just aft of the rudderstock. This is what the backstay chainplate is bolted onto, so I'd be reluctant to cut it...
The pictures should give you a pretty good idea of my setup. Very dirty and neglected looking, but still...
Mine had some PVC pipes glassed to the underside of the cabin sole to direct scupper discharge (stupidly) to the opposite side through-hull. I had to remove these to make room for the relocated (and probably new) steering sheave box. It's a single cast assy with integrated steering stop. Can't remember if it's an edson P/N or if I souurced a used Yacht Specialties part.
You can see where the pipes were run just at the back of the cabin sole, so I guess this is why the original sheaves were positioned too far forward. I remember them not leading fair when the helm was all the way over, but I do not clearly remember the original sutup.
In a few of the pictures, you can see where the sheave box has a big pin to act as a rudderstop, and rectangular/polygonal outlines inside the hull where the original rudder stop bosses were tabbed in.
And you can see my solution to the A/P steering arm. This arrangement has been in place for almost 15 years and steered the boat through some of the roughest weather (tropical storm in the gulfstream) that I would ever ask a A/P to steer in.
I'll post an album link in a little while when the uploads are done.

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